Sometime in the distant past I developed a love for this particular Psalm in the Bible that has so broad a scope of time discussed, so deep a range of emotions portrayed, and so real an existence described. It is Moses’ prayer to God in Psalm 90. But it has been quite a while since I read it, and the experience of picking it up again is refreshing, to say the least.
Firstly, it introduces God’s eternal nature–”from everlasting to everlasting(2)”–then contrasts it with man’s transience–”in the morning it flourishes and is renewed, in the evening it fades and withers(6)”. Then it describes how painful this existence is when our sin opposes and sets us against the eternal God who brought us into being. His righteous anger burns against us and we live our years to an end “like a sigh”(9). The contrast is frightening. God in all His glory and majesty brought forth a wonderful creation, yet here we are, puny pathetic creatures “making mud pies in a slum”, as C.S. Lewis would put it. The magnificence of transcendence seemed to not have any bearing on our life on earth. Or has it?
Are our span on earth nothing but “toil and trouble”(10)? Certainly the case when our life is one big midterm and never a final (friend’s quote)! Yet it does not seem so when you are having it good. Certainly someone who leads a partying lifestyle would not think so. I often shun to share the gospel with people whom I feel are doing alright in their lives and wonder why they need God. By thinking that I fall into the trap of echoing Karl Marx’s saying that religion is the opiate of the masses. Only the weak need God(?). I do not disagree fully with that statement, because this is what the Psalm is showing us! That everyone who is in sin and does not know his creator is pitiful and lost and alienated from the true glory of this life and the next! Yes, even the seemingly powerful and have-it-alls are amassing for themselves to cover up their desolate and derelict selves. Moses meditated on divine alienation and shuddered at the thought of it. Have we?
The pitiful contrast lands up, fortunately, in a happy turn. The Psalmist is saying “this should not be!” He asks for wisdom to number his days; pity by His returning; to be satisfied with divine love and the joy and gladness that follows; asks that as much as there is affliction, let there be gladness too; and finally, that God’s work and power be manifested to all. Oh the favor of the Lord might be upon us (17)! It is here where divine approval is knitted into earthly work. It is here we are reminded that God knows and looks over our past with forgiveness (13), our present with richness and stability (14), and our future in renewal (15). It is here we move from the insecurity of transience to the certainty of acceptance. It is here where I know I can wake up every morning and say to the God of time and universe, “Ok Let US do this!”.
“establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!” Psalm 90:17
